Of all the English heiresses of that day, the greatest, perhaps, was the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Exeter. The duke, having fought at Towton and Hexham for the Red Rose, was now braving poverty and exile for the house of Lancaster; but the duchess had not deemed it necessary to make any such sacrifice. Being a daughter of the Duke of York, she remained quietly at the court of King Edward, her brother, and, while enjoying the estates of her banished husband, acquired the right to dispose of his daughter's hand. The heiress of the Hollands was, of course, a prize much coveted; and Warwick thought her hand so desirable, that he solicited her in marriage for his nephew, young George Neville, the son of Lord Montagu. The queen, however, was determined to obtain this heiress for her eldest son, Thomas Grey, who had been created Marquis of Dorset. The Duchess of Exeter was, accordingly, dealt with, and in such a fashion that the earl was disappointed, while the queen congratulated her son on having obtained a bride worthy of the rank to which he had been elevated. Warwick was nephew of the Duchess of York, and both had already a grievance of which to complain. They were now to have their family pride wounded in a manner which, to souls so haughty, must have been well-nigh intolerable. Long ere the Wars of the Roses were thought of, Katherine Neville, elder sister of the proud duchess, and aunt of "The Stout Earl," was espoused by John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The duke departed this life in 1433, and Katherine gave her hand to an esquire named Strangways. When time passed on, and Strangways died, she consoled herself with a third husband in the person of Viscount Beaumont. The viscount went the way the duke and the esquire had gone, and Katherine found herself a third time a widow. But the dowager had buried her share of husbands; she had passed the age of eighty; and as to a fourth dash at matrimony, that was surely a subject which could never have entered into her head.